The Zen Vision W, in its role as a portable device for playing back video, supports Amazon Unbox, a video download service announced in September 2006 which offers hundreds of hours of movies and TV shows from leading studios. It also works with other video and audio download services which are Microsoft PlaysForSure certified.
Besides being capable of downloading subscription based audio and video files from the Internet, the Zen Vision W supports a wide selection of video formats including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4-SP, MJPEG, DivX 4 and 5 and XviD. It also supports TiVoToGo, a special format available to Tivo owners which lets them copy TV shows from their digital video recorders to devices like the Zen Vision W for on the go enjoyment.
The Zen Vision W, depending upon the hard drive size, can store tens of thousands of digital photos in addition to audio and video files. These digital photos can be offloaded onto the player from a digital camera which uses Compact Flash cards to store photos. These cards are inserted into a slot on the side of the Zen Vision W for the purposes of copying the photos over.
Both video and digital picture files can be viewed on a NTSC or PAL TV via a composite A/V output connection which connects to the back of the television. One viewing option allows for digital photo slide shows set to music, which can be listened to through headphones, a built-in speaker on the face of the player or by connecting external speakers.
Other features of the Zen Vision W include up to 14 hours of rechargeable battery life, a built-in FM radio with 32 presets, a built-in microphone for voice recording, an organizer with Microsoft Outlook synchronization, an alarm clock which can be set to music and USB 2.0 connectivity.
More details on the Creative Zen Vision W can be found at Creative’s Web site.
